DESIGN AND SIMULATION OF MEMS SHUNT CAPACITIVE SWITCH FOR LOWER SWITCHING TIME

As Demand of High speed devices increasing for RF and satellite communications with better accuracy, MEMS technology is considerd to be emerging technology to fulfill that need. In this paper, A MEMS shunt capacitive switch with fixed-fixed beam have been designed and simulated for numerous parameters. The parameters for study are Selection of beam material for the switch, air gap distance between electrodes and importantly the actuation voltage. For studying the effect of air gap and beam width on switching time, the air gap was varied from 0.6 mu m to 2.0 mu m and beam width from 1 mu m to 50 mu m. For an actuatiuon voltage of 10.5 V and air gap distance of 0.6 mu m, switching time result is 0.2 ns for spring constant equal to gold material. Study also considers the effect of increasing beam dimension in terms of width for a constant gap height. This syudy will be helpful for designing a MEMS capactitive switch for higher speed and for selection of proper dimension to get better performance.